Chapter one
"Mommy!" I scream, my voice breaking on the 'y'. I see the car closing in on the right side of ours. A big, red, luminous Sedan, coming straight at us. It's coming way too close, fast, and even I can tell there's something wrong. Really wrong. But it's already too late. CRASH!! Before I can do any more than scream the drunk driver hits us on Mommy's side. I can see the side of her beautiful, pale, heart shaped face bleeding everywhere. The crimson liquid coming from my mother is the only thing I'm aware of.
Slowly, those bright blue eyes are closing. They're looking straight into mine, closing more and more...
Then I woke up in a cold sweat. I looked around blankly, my heart still racing. I realized I was dreaming about the accident again. I was almost thirteen years old. I lived with adoptive parents, Christopher and Samantha. That's because when I was five years old, my family's car, with Daddy, Mama, Joshua, and me in it got hit by a drunk driver head on. I had never remembered it much. It was just always a blur that I'd never been told much about.
...Then I'd started having dreams about it. Nightmares. I kept really getting scared, horrified. I couldn't get the picture of Mom -my nice, loving, caring, perfect mom, with blood covering her face- out of my head. Those eyes, eyes identical to my own, gazing at me helplessly, with no hope of being saved. The twinkle I remembered being there was gone. Then I watched her slowly die, right in front of me. I had always remembered, to a point, I think. Only then, though, was I letting myself think about it. While I wanted to sleep.
Joshua was my brother. My amazing, faithful brother. He lived through the accident, too, and when it happened, he was seven years old. Two years older than me. But they took him away from me. To a different home.
We had been really close. Best friends. Everything we ever did we did together, and we loved each other more than the world. Even with the small age difference, we had always been close. We had never fought, except over stupid things, which always got resolved in less than a day.
He'd held me in the back seat while we waited for the ambulance to come save us, the front of our small car totally gone and our parents not able to help. I vaguely remember him, on that night eight years ago, almost crying, telling them they can't take me away, after we'd found out our parents were dead. I couldn't remember one time I'd seen my brother cry. Josh had always seemed like the total optimist, I'd always been told he got that from my dad. Right before they separated us, I remembered him telling me something... ugh, I could never completely remember. I sometimes dreamt of him coming and finding me and going away, just him and I, so we could be together again. It had been my personal fantasy. I knew he was an amazing brother, because how else would I remember him after all of those years? I knew he was out there, somewhere, growing into an amazing young man. And some day I would find him.
My father had died in the ambulance after the accident. He’d been unconscious in the driver's seat while my mother died and Josh and I waited, almost unharmed because of the seat belts, for help to come. I never really remembered very much about my father... I knew, though, that he was an amazing man. He had been handsome and successful as well as loving and caring. Every time I looked at the one picture I have of my real family, I looked at his face and felt a wave of adoration. He had been a beautiful man in and out, and he had loved our family more than anything.
"Ouch!!" I yelped, jumping. Tiger, the 'family's' cat, (an evil cat, might I add,) jolted me back to reality. My alarm clock went off. *Great* I thought, *another day of being called 'the orphan girl'. Why can’t they just call me by my name? Is it that hard? I AM a human being here. And I'm not Annie. Or a plague. Oh well.* I thought, *let's just get it over with for today.*
*****
"Callie! Come down here! Chris is almost done with your breakfast!"
Ugh. Chris and Sam. My "parents" as they liked to call themselves.
I had never, not once thought of those people as my family, and I had been with them since I was almost six years old. They hated that about me, that I couldn’t call them Mom and Dad. Once, when I'd tried to tell them about the dreams I'd been having of the accident, they told me I was imagining it all. No way could I have remembered anything from that long ago. They had even had the nerve to tell me I didn't have a brother. They acted as if my mother and father and Joshua had never existed, and they had always raised me. I absolutely hated that. I needed to remember my real family. Samantha and Chris were just replacements.
I got up, reluctantly, got dressed in faded jeans and a pink long sleeve button down shirt, and went downstairs. When I got to the kitchen I saw Chris and Sam at the breakfast table. Sam had dirty blonde hair and was very... precise. Everything always had to be just right. She was the one who did most of the cleaning in the house and had a job as a secretary. Chris was the "I think I'm funny" kind of guy and had the dumbest jokes sometimes. He was a cook for a local restaurant, and always cooked us breakfast and dinner, lunch on the weekends. He had black hair and eyes a deep chocolate color. They both had one thing in common. A secret. Our horrible secret.
I sat down and ate half of a pancake with strawberries in the middle, then down a glass of apple juice. *Time for good old school* I thought sarcastically. Little did I know today at school would start a chain of events that would lead it to be the best day of my life. But everyone knows you can't get anything good without some bad in there, too.
Author notes
Wow. This is a ton better than before, in my opinion. I have about 40 chapters written of this, but I am going to revise them all. So I'll have Two Revised out soon.
Whatcha think?
Yeah. I'm still editing the rest of them!!! I actually started this story when I was 11, lol!
- The Points Bank group list • next in list
A contest entry
- d by LostSoulOfRage.
300 points, ended February 13, 2007, 19 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - ANYTHING LITERALLY GOES by Night-Rink.
134 points, ended February 17, 2007, 12 entries
Honorable mention
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - Short and Sweet! by tacobell4me08.
305 points, ended February 16, 2007, 19 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - I'll Read Anything by Kitzwa.
200 points, ended April 7, 2007, 50 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - The Writer's Challenge: Round X by Asfand.
175 points, ended October 19, 2007, 21 entries
Honorable mention
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - Calling All Novelists- I Want First Chapters by artemis the hunter.
260 points, ended December 7, 2007, 44 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 21 of 21
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This was a good read! good job! thanks for entering my contes and good luck!
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Keep going!! I want to read more! Great job. What's going to happen with Joshua? Can't wait to find out. Keep writing!
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Well that was different. Interesting. I liked it.
Score!
Theme: 8/10 > Some things that could be more complete. Some of the idead were a little jumpy and not fully explained.
Originality: 13/15 > I like the spin you've put on this, but the over all concept isn't that original.
Flow: 20/25 > A couple things interupt the flow of this piece. The transitions a a bit choppy, and your punctuation is off just a little. It should be easy enough to fix with another go over, and as you learn more about writing, as we all do, it will become easier and easier to perfect the flow.
Feeling: 15/20 > It may have just been me, but I found the was some of this was described made me think the girl was indifferent. I know that's not the case because of the words, but what of the actions and feelings? They just don't add up.
Structure: 20/30 > The paragraphs are very blocky, wordy, and they contain too many idependant ideas. Try to separate your ideas a bit more. It's easier on the reader that way.
Total: 76/100
Good job on this, and good luck in the contest. -
Do Continue~
Starting from the beginning, I liked how you said ' my voice breaking on the y ' A nice original touch there ~
I liked how you started, it was a good way to give us history rather then just blank-pointedly saying 'she cried onto the pillows, letting her tears fall in memoirs ofher dead parents'. I like how you attempted to make it your own ~
Possess the story and the concept, don't let it possess you ~
I would like it if you could make the 'I'd' 'I'll' to I had, and I will or shall, becuase you can only use the apostrophies in dialogue. It is not at all grammatically incorrect, but it's only more appropriate ~
Okay, now here is something I like:
~ The fact that she hated her adoptants and did not think 'they are so nice to adopt me'. It really stood out of the common cliche thought.
~ Her brother and she were seperated. Commonly, it would not happen but I liked how you step into irony and sadness.
Overall, a good story ~
Some grammatical errors here and there.
Instead of the CRASH!!! in the beginning para, put it in a new line and three exclamations are incorrect!
Good luck and thanks for entering ~
Theme ~ 8.2/10 -- The theme was good, orphans are not uncommon, but I liked how you gave her the personality.
Originality ~ 11.3/15 -- Not really very original, actually. Originality would be something I never really thought of or had read, but we all know there are lots of orphan stories out there.
Flow ~ 21.4/25 -- Flow was a bit rushed towards the end, but you pretrayed the dream nicely.
Feeling ~ 18/20 -- Yes, It had lots of feeling.
Structure ~ 23.9/30 -- The grammatical errors took from the structure. I would have liked it to be a complete story, but anywho, nice job!
Total 82.8/100
Great job ~ -
WHY??? WHY in the glorious name of GOD, did you have to end it there!!!!!!!!
Ahem. Wow. awesome totally great, yada yada yada, I'm going to read the next part.
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wow, this is awesome! i love stories that begin with people dreaming, drenched in sweat (wink wink, leigh). i find it sort of confusing, that part about Joshua - but oh well, the rest of it is awesome! i love it!
lise
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The idea of this story was good, but there needs to be much more detail. If it was really a traumatizing incident for your character you should be able to get almost 1000 words out of it. Also, I found it to be a little choppy at times, and by that I mean that it didn't stay on the same train of thought for very long.
Also, how many more chapters are you planning and where are you going with the story? Is it just going to be like a day in the life of this girl or will there be a deeper plot to it? It has a lot of potential to be quite interesting. -
This was good, you could have given more info about the surroundings of when the accident happened and maybe more on the father and why they seperated the brother from the sister.
Good job.
Lady Madeline. -
This is good. but like tacobell4me08 needs more description. If this were to get published it'd be around like1 page and 1/2 or about a page long. Add some more and it'll be good. Talk about the car accident. More about hwo he felt when his family died. Anything to make it longer. But pretty good job so far.
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This had a great plot. I think the story needs to be expanded more. I also think it is lacking some details. It would be more interesting to the reader if there was more detail, and a broader vocabulary.Nothing really painted a picture in my mind. The way you ran in and out of a dream was very creative, but maybe a smoother transition would make things less confusing. I wasn't too sure why the part with the family cat was in there and it made me confused. I thought you had already woken up from your dream.
This will be a great peice once it is tweeked a little bit more. I think you really have something! -
Oooh!
This is really good! I want to read more too! Did you really write this when you were littler? Like how littler? *sorry it's seven in the morning my grammar isn't all that great* Anywho great story I didn't see anything that needed any critisizing so good job! -
Your question. Do you have a chance at publishing.
Yes.
If this is a sample, then yes. I'm not looking at it as a beginning of a story more than just the style. I'll have to go and read the rest of it and see where it goes.
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Thanks for entering the contest, I can see where this might eventually morph to fit the critera... are there any more chapters? Otherwise, I'm gong to have to DQ you. Sorry.
As a story, this is a very nice beginning. Good work.
-UBA- -
tnx for entering the contest n srry it took so long to comment.
okay wow this is really good. i loved this story. it had me from the beginning.
but i have a suggestion, try going back and adding more details. it all seems to happen fast. try slowing down and adding detials to the story. like you said their was blood on the mother's face, discribe where. was it just on the left side dripping from the temple or was it covering the whole face. things like that really help a story.
but this is just a suggestion, its your story. but i really enjoyed reading it. it makes me want to read more. i hope you write more to it. if you do let me know. good luck and keep up the great work.
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Pretty good, Taylor Renee. I really thought this was really well-written. You had some good punctuation on this one. I'm new at storywrite, since I've never really been here, so I'll most likely end up reading the other chapters, too.
The beginning, however, was kind of quick-paced. You probably meant it that way, anyway.
Keep on writing on! -
i love this
omg i love the beginning of this story. i'm hooked. i can't wait to read more of it. i want to know everything that happened. whats her name? any ways i love it and i hope you keep writing.. -
Good beginning but I have 1 question what is the main characters name? Is the mother still alive? Good story I am off to read part 2
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Good so far. Okay, I'm trying to guess what this story is about. Let's see...is it about a teenage girl who wants to find her brother? Huh? Am I right? I guess I'm going to have to find out for myself, then.
P.S., what's her name? -
Its a nice start with a lot of thought put into it. the main character was well shown and her background was well documented. the ending with the mention of adoption being her pet name was a great set up for the other parts of the story. maybe there could be more descripotion about her? lucyx
beginning: 5, language: 3, plot: 4, dialog: 3, characters: 3.
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Very good beginning and i am bout to read ch.2! * i posted that story i told you about! It is called dont lie jannie!
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I like the beginning of this although I think you could have gone into mmore details about their surroundings expecially since they were in a car, a child would be all over the place noticing anything and everything inside and outside the car. Otherwise it's a captivating story with a great start. I'm looking forward to reading the other chapters
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